


In the end we'll find our happiness (or fight for it)

by Menatiera



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Banter, Everyday Avengers, M/M, Steve after the ice, Stony - Freeform, after-battle chilling, but it's all right, ficlets for prompts, some fight, they have issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-09-27 12:31:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10020902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Menatiera/pseuds/Menatiera
Summary: Collection of Stony short stories and ficlets, not related to each other.1. Tony is counting, as usual. The others are more or less amused.





	1. One Thousand

**Author's Note:**

> English is only my second language, so my grammar probably won't be perfect for a long, long time. Sorry for every mistake! Maybe practice will make me better, eventually.
> 
> The inspiration came from the 'Bringing Food to the Lab: Stony Fic community' on Imzy [prompt](https://www.imzy.com/bringing_food_to_lab_stony/post/1000_members_celebration_one_word_prompt_recs).
> 
> Shoutout to [BuckytheDucky](http://archiveofourown.org/users/BuckytheDucky/pseuds/BuckytheDucky), who is an endless source of encouragement and are beta-reading for me. You are amazing and I'm really grateful.

"ONE THOUSAND!" Tony yelled so loud through the commlink that Steve almost dropped his shield in the middle of the battle. Superhearing was great, except when it wasn't.

"What the hell?" Clint asked before anyone else could. "Iron Man, I'm already half deaf, don't make me stone-deaf, if you have a chance!"

"Oh, come on, you would be okay with ASL and lip-reading," Tony teased back, and Steve could practically hear his smirk in his voice.

"But I'd not, sweetheart," Cap intervened before Clint could go on with the banter. As he spoke he deflected a bullet and with the shield he knocked out the AIM agent who shoot it before he could fire again. "Anyway, focus on the task, we still need to get the intel!" Being the Captain of the Avengers sometimes felt like herding a group of cats. Well, a very well-armed and dangerous group of cats.

"I wanna know what was this about," Natasha joined the conversation. "A thousand what?"

"Body count." Tony practically purred with satisfaction as he said it. He ducked before the Hulk could smash him acidentally along with a watchout tower. "As an Avenger, I mean. I'd have higher number if I'd count the ones I shoot when I was by myself."

"Cool, mate." That was all Clint replied.

"Well done." Natasha also sounded pleased.

"Indeed, a fine warrior you are!" Thor hurried past Steve in the heart of the battle.

Steve didn't say anything, he had no idea for the right words. It would be hypocritical if he'd protest that counting the dead bodies behind is not quite elegant, to say at least. And after the others’ approval another praising sentence wouldn't sound... well, enough. And anyway, they _were_ the middle of the fighting, so it probably didn't matter.

But later that evening, when they were settled in the living room (Clint was binding up a wound on Nat's hip, and Bruce was braiding Thor's hair, Tony was watching a sitcom from the couch, his legs curled around Steve’s waist as he was re-painting his shield), the billionaire looked at Steve.

"How much do you have, Cap?"

His hand stopped in the middle of the move. "How much what?"

"Your body count. Mine is 1021 at the moment. You must have a crazy high number by now, even if only your Avenger time counts."

"Dunno, not counting."

"Why not?"

"Cause it’s..." Did he really needed to explain this? There was a time when he had agreed with Tony; hell, there was a time when he had been thinking bathing in the blood of his enemies would be a great idea. But he was older now - and maybe even wiser. He knew and did his duty to protect people, but he didn’t have to enjoy the damage he made through it to other human beings. "...not nice?"

Tony snorted and even Nat giggled a bit on his answer.

"You are cute," she declared, and stretched herself to pat Steve on the head.

"Hey, everything for eyes, nothing for the hands, Nat, he's mine," Tony protested, and kissed his boyfriend on his forehead.

"Yeah, don't be petty," she rolled her eyes.

"You know I don't like when you act like this?" Steve turned to Tony with his lips pursed.

"Liar." This time, Tony kissed him properly.

"Maybe I am," Steve admitted with a pleased smirk.

"JARVIS, from now on you count for Cap's hits, too. Let's see which of us reach for another thousand sooner."

If Steve wanted to protest, another kiss silenced it before he had the chance.


	2. Colors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Steve wakes up from the ice, Tony is right next to him, and seems like the most colorful being in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, a ficlet for the Imzy Stony Community's [One Word Prompt.](https://www.imzy.com/bringing_food_to_lab_stony/post/one_word_prompt_25_colors) #25: Colors
> 
> Thanks for [Hiriajuu](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Hiriajuu) and maltesegeek for pre-reading and betaing this one.

Steve is once again awed by colours.

When he first saw the world at it’s true shades - right after stepping out of the pod, high on endorphine and the lack of suffering that had reeled through his nerves just a minute before and his whole life -, the experience was breathtaking. He was quite sure that he died and got to heaven, and the red on Peggy's lips, the faint blush on her cheeks had to be something angelic.

This second sight-after-death is not less beautiful, yet more confusing. 

The room he's in has no special details, but there are loud chirps and beepings, equipment that is completely extraneous, and... a man.

Steve usually retains the phrase 'beautiful' for woman, but he has to admit, even if just for himself, that it is the right word for this man. His hair is a bit messy, but has a perfect tinge - so dark black that one can practically see the stars in it, and it looks so smooth that he wants to touch it immediately. His eyes are fancy deep and warm brown, the shade of topaz and milk chocolate and walnut, and there’s such gentle care in it that Steve feels his heart melt by the sheer force of it. The curve of his lips is just the perfect angle to soften his face from a simple handsomeness to this almost-eternal beauty, even with the warn wrinkles around his eyes. He feels the urge to draw him, and not with just plain black graphite pencils. He deserves to be perpetuated for an eternity with coloured pencils or even watercolors and more.

It took a few seconds for the man to notice he's awake, and at that moment his face goes through a rapid series of alteration. First it lights up with joy - Steve’s chest aches just seeing it, but he has no idea why -, then a great amount of pride tenderizes his smile, and then, within a few heartbeats, the expression closes itself, and the man became unreadably, yet neutrally cheerful. The warmness of his eyes does not disappear completely, but he probably spends great amount of focus to hide it under the layers of casual satisfaction and a smirk.

"Look who's awake." His voice is soft, too, and after such a long silence and only the sounds of subaqueous waves, it feels like balm on the skin.

Steve comes to a halt at the thought. Subaqueous... waves?... Where did that come from? He clears his throat, and it feels like it was scratched from the inside. "Maybe Ginger Rogers?", he tries for a lame joke. He always liked her works, and Peggy agreed that they should watch one of the Ginger and Fred starred films in a theatre after the war. Preferably as a date.

The thought makes him sad, yet he don’t know the reason behind the feeling.

The man’s smile widens a bit, and becomes a little bit amused. That’s the moment Steve realizes that he may be beautiful, but he’s not perfect. He’s too pale - unhealthily, even - and he has thick dark circles under his eyes. Yet these little flaws that make him more human somehow make him even more beautiful at the same time. Steve sits up.

“Easy, soldier, the doc might not appreciate if you…” The man starts to speak, voice oddly familiar, and it’s the moment the memories break into the calm of Steve’s mind, whirring and crashing, just like the plane he smashed to the Arctic. The last words of his conversation with Peggy hang in his ears, the breath of the cold lurks in his lungs, and even more after that, ice on his skin, whiteness everywhere…

The frantic, uneven beeping sounds from the machinery are getting on his nerves. He tries to catch his own breaths, tries to force himself back into the previous calm numbness, but he can’t. The freezing cold is not the worst part. The faint, uncatchable thought lurking behind it is worse. Something… he can’t explain. He has to ask.

“What happened?”

Though he’s sure as hell he won’t like the answer. The world shatters in front of his eyes as the man speaks, announcing the date of 2011, almost seventy years after the plane crash, the fact that the serum kept him alive all through this time and he’s probably as good as he was the last time the world saw him… 

He can’t really get it, can’t comprehend it, not fully. It makes no sense at all, impossible as it is. He should feel something about it - anger, grief, sadness, anything -, but he can’t right now. It’s like after his first kill - he didn’t even realize it at the time in Azzano that he did it, and it was days later that he awoke from his first nightmare of the war, realizing the weight of his actions. All of that situation - the passing of the time, the winning of the war, the losing of his friends - seems distant, through obscure glass or waterfall. It feels surreal - and the opposite of the beautiful man next to him. He is the one and only thing that seems real right now. 

So he lets him talk, much more than he actually likes listening to anyone, lost in the voice, the forced happiness and the actual lingering melancholy behind it. The sight of him, which is still strangely colorful, like he’s some eternal entity out of this mundane world.

It’s half absurd and bizarre, but half reassuring and calming. The world makes no sense at all, but Tony - as he learns his name a moment later - is there, he’s always there when Steve needs a familiar face, or a gentle voice. Steve’s not sure what he would do without him, but doesn’t want to know at all, because Tony Stark is there right next to him.

He’s the one that helps him keep his sanity during the battle of Manhattan, when aliens pour down from the sky like fucking bees or something. He’s the one who offers him a home after all that madness, a place to find out what’s next. He’s the one who is awake every time Steve can’t sleep, and he’s the one Steve can help calming down when being Iron Man is just too much for him. He’s the one who has all those beautiful colours on him even when the world seems to offer only black and white and gray shades.

They are from a different time, and different background, but they are each other’s anchors, and that’s more than any of them hoped for before.


End file.
